"Wild Wolves"

ANNOUNCER:
Tonight on NOVA, a rare encounter with creatures of legend. They're wary,
elusive. Now, NOVA journeys to the ends of the earth to expose secret
lives of the pack: where they live, how they hunt, and under the cover
of darkness, in places you never thought they'd go. Wild Wolves.

Major funding for NOVA is provided by the Park Foundation. Dedicated to
education and quality television.

And by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and viewers like you.

NARRATOR: A hunter. A hunter so strong that it can pull down prey ten times
its own weight. So intelligent and capable that primitive man followed it to
scavenge from its kills. A hunter which, because of its very success, has now
been banished by man to the most remote and barren of wildernesses. The howl
of the wolf, the sound of the unknown. And yet, wolves are more familiar to us
than we might think. Stone Age people took their pups and tamed them, and all
our domesticated dogs are descended from them. Indeed, the very
characteristics we most admire in our dogs—loyalty and intelligence and
courage—are precisely the characters that the wolf has to have to survive in
the wild. And yet, whereas the dog has become man's best friend, the wolf
remains one of his most feared enemies. It is time we saw the wolf for what it
really is. Northern Canada in winter is a bleak and unpromising land for any
hunter. But the wolf is indefatigable. Its senses are so acute that it can
interpret what is going on around it with a degree of subtlety that is beyond
our imagining. It has a loose-limbed trot that is so effective and economical
of energy that it can cover 50 miles in 24 hours, and do so for day after day
after day. The raven is a scavenger, and wolves are not above joining it, for
the winter brings many casualties—easy meat. Many wolves, for much of the
time, operate as a pack. They have such an extraordinary degree of intuition
that their understanding of one another's intentions often seems beyond normal
explanation. Younger members learn from the older, more experienced ones so
that the whole group operates as a unified and highly skilled team. For all of
these reasons, human hunters everywhere have admired the wolf. Even today, the
native people of the North call it "The Teacher," and honor its special powers
with dances. In Europe, when people settled down to farm, the wolf's image
changed from deity to devil and fertile imaginations wove frightening legends
around it. As farmers cleared the forests, the wolves developed a taste for
livestock. The innocent lamb and the savage wolf became powerful symbols which
the Church used to demonstrate the existence of Satan. So, wolves were hunted
without mercy. Eventually, they were driven out of most of Europe's forests,
but an irrational fear of them has remained. It takes huge commitment and
great dedication to study wolves. It also takes a lot of air miles. A single
pack may have a vast range, hundreds of miles across. Biologist Mike Nelson is
on a wolf patrol in the wilderness near the American Great Lakes. The leader
of the project, Dr. David Mech, has been studying wolves here for 25 years.
The team seldom catches sight of the animals. Instead, they follow a pack not
by sight, but by sound. They trapped wolves from several packs and fitted them
with collars that emit different radio signals. So now, by homing in on the
signals, they've mapped the boundaries of each pack territory—boundaries
that are rigorously marked and defended, and on a good day, they may actually
catch a glimpse of the wolves themselves.

DR. DAVID MECH: There they are, Mike. There's several of them.

NARRATOR: Wolves are wary and elusive, so we may never know the whole truth
about their lives. Fragments of evidence must be pieced together. Wolves can
respond intelligently to changing conditions, which keeps wolf biologists
guessing. Mech and Nelson can only begin to understand how wolf packs operate
by examining when and what they eat. And this is work that has to be done on
foot. The wolves may have scattered for now, but they left lots of clues
around their deer kill, which Mech and Nelson must interpret, much as
detectives would at the scene of a crime.

NELSON: Oh, a couple of legs still left here, laid down.

DR. DAVID MECH: Well, they've left some.

NELSON: Yeah.

DR. DAVID MECH: But if we hadn't interrupted them, I think they'd have
finished this off pretty fast.

NELSON: Well, it was only two hours ago when we watched them feeding here.

DR. DAVID MECH: Yeah, I sure would have, too. We'll take it, take some back
and dry it, anyway.

NELSON: Right.

NARRATOR: The quality and amount of bone marrow will tell them about the
deer's health before it died. Teeth samples will establish its age, and scuffle
marks in the snow will indicate how many wolves were involved in the chase and
in the final kill. Mech and Nelson will deduce why that particular
white-tailed deer became vulnerable. In these Minnesota forests, Mech and
Nelson have established that it is old, young, or sick deer that are most
likely to be killed by wolves. A fit deer, with all its senses tuned to
danger, can usually spot a wolf in time, and escape. The numbers and size of
prey animals in any area affect the size of wolf packs. In Northern Minnesota,
there are many white-tailed deer and moose, so some packs can be 15-strong.
The pack is dominated by an adult pair who are often together for life.
Offspring from the previous three years make up the rest of the group. These
pups look fully grown, but they're still learning from their parents. Their
schooling is long, and their family life intense. Wolf packs are no more than
highly organized and mobile nurseries. And it is this extraordinary mobility
which makes them so difficult to observe at close range. To get close to a
wolf on the ground, you have to be able to think like a wolf, and observe and
interpret the same signs that they use in making their decisions. These wolves
in Northern Canada are exceptional. They follow and attempt to kill the
formidable and massive of all prey animals—buffalo. These buffalo belong to
the last of the great herds that once covered the North American grasslands.
Wolf packs have shadowed them for thousands of years. Although the wolves here
are the largest in the world—Some weigh over 125 pounds—an adult buffalo
may weigh over a ton. So, bringing one down is both difficult and dangerous.
Snow can sometimes give wolves an advantage. Their splayed paws act like
snowshoes, so that they can move over the top of crusted snow in places where
other animals would sink into the drifts. To make up for their relatively
small size, these wolves rely heavily on teamwork. They move among the
buffalo, sizing up the herd, looking for an animal that might be vulnerable,
and therefore easier to bring down. The buffaloes stand their ground. If the
pack can persuade the herd to move, then the older and weaker animals will
become more obvious. The wolves are choosing their moment very carefully,
because in each buffalo hunt, they are risking their lives. The wolves' first
attack is a test. It will help them to decide whether to back off or whether
to build up the pressure. They've selected a possible victim. If they can
isolate it from the herd, they will be able to deny it security and food. Day
after day, they keep up the pressure. The stress on the buffalo becomes both
physical and psychological, draining it of energy and determination. It's a
long process. But the wolves are patient. If the wolves are successful, they
will have enough meat to last the whole pack for a week. If the buffalo
manages to regain the safety of the herd, then the wolves will have to start
all over again. Here in the high arctic, members of the pack keep in touch
with one another over vast distances. Prey may be widely scattered. Herds of
musk ox, for instance, may be tens of miles apart. Arctic wolves have to cover
a lot of ground. Often, they are forced to live on smaller prey, such as
arctic hare. But hares are alert and quick, and although there are many of
them, they are very difficult to catch. They're not much more than a snack for
a wolf, and when you're on such short rations, you have no energy to spare.
Even if jaegers harass you because you have inadvertently gotten close to their
nest, it's not worth the energy to respond. Calories may be short, but
relationships are strong. This is the seventh spring that this wolf couple
have been together. Ellesmere Island, where these wolves live, is in almost
perpetual darkness during the five months of winter. When summer arrives, the
thick fur, which helped the wolf survive the bitter cold, becomes an
irritation. It's a pleasure to get rid of it. This far north, the summer is
very short, so the arrival of young has to be precisely timed. Arctic hares
have already produced their babies, and the leverets are busy cropping the new
plant shoots. But if the wolves themselves are to breed successfully, their
hunting efforts must go up a gear. Wolves have an eloquent body language. The
female uses it to persuade the male to go out to find food. There is no
stalking cover for the male wolf, and adult hares can easily sprint and bounce
out of danger. The leverets tend to lie low. The young hare has speed—but
the wolf has stamina. The female wants her share. This tug of war reflects an
internal struggle, the battle between a wolf's individual needs and its team
spirit. The female wins the hare without too much trouble—which suggests
that there's more at stake than this meal. The pair may already have pups
hidden away in their den. By keeping her partner hungry, the female forces him
to continue his search for food. Further south, the buffalo are also shedding
their winter coats and minding their spring calves. The new calves are easier
targets for the wolves, but they must still be cautious. Nothing about
catching buffalo is easy. The calves may look vulnerable, but they have
fiercely protective parents. Again, the wolves get the herd on the run.
Instinctively, the calves move to the middle, where they are shielded by the
sheer bulk and ferocity of the adults. Buffalo calves can run as fast as their
parents, but if the wolves keep the herd moving, the calves will become
exhausted. And if one should stumble, it will be left exposed. The wolves
have got one. This calf seems doomed. An adult returns to the rescue. The
mother, helped by several other adults, tries to shepherd the calf back to the
safety of the herd. The calf makes it, but the injuries and shock it has
sustained have weakened it. So, the wolves will keep the herd running for many
miles yet. Their hunger makes them determined and tenacious. Successful
buffalo hunts are rare. It's very difficult for wolves to bring down a fit
adult. The best opportunity comes when an animal is weak or already wounded.
And this one is. The buffalo makes a break for safety, but its strength is
already ebbing away. The wolves' only weapons are their sharp teeth. Killing
quickly is not a choice open to them. There has always been a natural and
subtle relationship between wolves and buffalo. Human hunters on the plains
used to put on wolf skins in order to creep close to the herds. But it wasn't
easy even for them to catch one. Horse-power shifted the balance. Native
people could now round up the buffalo and kill them in larger numbers. But
once the hunters had guns, the buffalo had little chance. European colonizers
cleared the land for their cattle and grain—first of buffalo, and then of
wolves. Wolves were shot, trapped, and poisoned with fanatical zeal. By the
early 1930s, wolves had been exterminated from most of the United States. As
in Europe, the wolf became a fugitive, surviving only in places well away from
persecution—Places such as this, a remote island off the west coast of
Canada, where clear creeks each year fill with salmon. It's a wilderness
largely untouched by man. Wolves are extremely adaptable, and here, during the
salmon season, they go fishing. As we have learned more about the wolves' way
of life, we have come to accept that, like all predators, they are important
elements in maintaining the natural balance of the wilderness. Almost from
birth, wolf puppies display individual personalities and aptitudes. At three
months, they are still too inexperienced to kill large animals, so they are
nurtured in a safe place while the older wolves go out hunting. Grovelling and
urgent licking by the pups encourages the returning adult to regurgitate the
contents of its expandable stomach. Farther south in the United States, some
people, increasingly appreciative of wild places, have campaigned for the
protection of wolves and a better understanding of their nature. Many people
want to re-introduce them into protected land, which is now overrun by deer and
elk. The Nez Perce Indians of the Rocky Mountains offered their own tribal
lands for the release of 35 wild-trapped wolves.

HORACE: When the first wolves came back for release, I was there to greet them.
And it was good to give them a blessing. I had the opportunity to look inside
the cage and greet the wolf. I looked into his eyes and he looked at me. And
I spoke to him in my own language. I told him, "I'm glad to see you back, my
brother. You have been gone a long time, and it's good to see you back here
again." That's the words that I offered to him. And after that, I never see
him anymore, and I'm hoping that someday, we will meet again.

NARRATOR: In other places, the wolf is not so welcome. Wolves pay no regard to
human feelings or boundaries. They travel to where there is food. They may
follow other wolf scent for hundreds of miles, or just strike out independently
on their own. In the late 1980s, a grey male wolf trotted 250 miles from the
Canadian border right into the Nine Mile Valley, the heart of Montana ranching
country. Hatred of wolves has a long tradition here.

RALPH THISTED: I caught sight of this big coyote, or what I thought was a
coyote, and after getting the rifle and sighting down the telescopic sights to
get a better look, I realized it was not a coyote.

NARRATOR: The grey wolf had chosen his ranch well. Ralph Thisted was
intrigued by the view down his gunsights, and hoped to see more. Soon
after, Federal biologist Mike Jiminez arrived on the track of another
wolf. This was a female with a radio collar that had been caught near
Canada some months before. She had followed the male's scent right onto
the Thisted ranch. When her signal became static, Jiminez suspected that
they had made a den. Word leaked out. The return of the wolf was a tabloid
editor's dream. Opinion quickly polarized. But wolves have legal protection
now. Killing them no longer brings a bounty, but a possible hundred-thousand-dollar
fine. Ranching country is hard to police. Within weeks, the female wolf's
radio collar was recovered. It had been cut off and dumped. Neither her
body—nor the culprit—was ever found. Soon afterwards, her mate, the
grey male, was found dead by the highway. Ralph Thisted began videoing
the orphaned pups. Road-killed deer were put out for the pups to eat.
But without their parents, he feared for their long-term survival. Some
did make it, and there is now a healthy wolf population in the valley,
and their presence is more widely accepted. Elsewhere, wolves are not
waiting for an invitation. Wherever wild prey is dense, they are crossing
the Canadian border, trickling back into their former territory. If wolves
have enough room to maneuver, they tend to avoid cattle. But if there
is a shortage of prey, it's hardly surprising that a wolf will try to
take the meat that men are rearing for themselves. Nowhere is this problem
greater than in India. It is early July in the state of Maharashtra, and
the monsoon is breaking. It is about as hot and humid as a wolf can stand.
India is as far south as wolves go. Indian wolves are uncommon, but they
are most visible in the rainy season, when they are hunting for their
pups as well as for themselves. Wild blackbuck concentrate in large numbers
wherever there is new growth, even if it is in the heart of a wolf pack's
territory. As in wolf hunts everywhere, the first stage is to identify
frailty. Blackbuck are not only fast, they are also extremely agile. Each,
as it leaps, is demonstrating its fitness and strength. Maybe their pursuer
will choose a weaker neighbor, or get too confused to select a single
target. But when the monsoon dries up in September, the blackbuck disperse.
The wolves must look elsewhere for food. These fast-growing pups still
need feeding. The parents' only choice is to take the villagers' livestock.
Local people also have families to support, and they do all they can to
protect their herd, using their dogs—domesticated wolves—to help
them do so. It's hard for anyone to make a living here. There are few
places left for the Indian wolf. In some parts of Europe, wolves have
found a way of living close to man. In rural Romania, the pace of change
has been relatively slow. The mountain meadows of Transylvania are grazed
in much the same way as they have been for centuries. Every evening, shepherds
pen their flocks to protect them against wild animals. Just above them,
on the upper slopes, is one of the wildest and most extensive tracts of
forest left in Europe. Wolves, bears, and lynx live here in substantial
numbers. But when shepherds lose occasional lambs, it's the wolf that
is usually blamed. To establish the truth of the matter, scientists trapped
and radio collared a wild female wolf. Using remote cameras, they were
able to monitor the growth of her nine puppies. By June, most of the youngsters
were on to solids—regurgitated deer meat, for instance—which she
brought back from her hunting trips. A couple of the youngsters still
have a taste for her milk. There are good numbers of red deer in her hunting
territory, but providing food for ten is a demanding business. However,
her patch of forest slopes down to the suburbs and industrial areas of
the town of Brasov. Brasov is modernizing fast, but this is Transylvania,
and werewolf myths persist to this day. So, the first report of a wolf
by the main line to Bucharest were treated as tales told by the gullible.
Romanian bed-time stories are as full of evil wolves as elsewhere in Europe.
The scientists were skeptical, but when they began tracking the wolf at
night, they discovered that they had missed half the story. A starlight-sensitive
camera revealed that not only was it a wolf here, but it was behaving
in a most surprising fashion. When the night express to Bucharest had
passed through, the female wolf carefully crossed the line. Although temporarily
limping, probably because of a thorn in her foot, the female was confidently
making her way into town. She was clearly streetwise and seemed to be
certain of where she was going. By midnight, she had crossed the main
drainage canal, and had been joined by a yearling from her pack. They
were now on the other side of town, well away from their forest home.
When the female headed across waste ground towards the oil refinery, the
researchers were struggling to keep up. But the team's leader, Dr. Christopher
Promberger, had guessed where the wolf was heading—for the summer sheep
meadows beyond. The sheep are well-guarded. This must be one of the few
places in Europe where shepherds still watch their flocks by night. Their
dogs display all the possessiveness of their wolf ancestors. Outnumbered,
the female wolf turned back into town. It is now known that she always
checks the flocks first for a chance stray, but she finds easier meals
in and around the Brasov rubbish bins. Wolves here are simply adapting
to a new environment, just as urban foxes have done in English towns.
She looks very like another feral dog, and so far, she has evaded unwanted
publicity. But it is unlikely that the Brasov residents will remain in
the dark for much longer. They will have to decide whether or not to tolerate
a wolf in their midst. To survive in the modern world, wolves need our
acceptance, as well as physical space. Even in the wildest places, wolves
face difficulties. On the barren ground of Ellesmere Island, even suitable
places for dens are rare, and the wolves have great problems to solve
if they are to raise a family. This pair have two pups. At five weeks
old, they are adventurous, but they are far from independent. The female
and her mate will have to provide them with food for months yet. Wolf
puppyhood is long because there is so much to learn. Vigorous play is
an important part of learning new skills, but also helps to strengthen
to pups' developing bodies. They will try to suckle as often as possible,
but their mother is not always keen to oblige. It is likely that she hasn't
had much to eat herself lately, and is simply short of milk. The mother
wolf and her pups are showing obvious signs of hunger. To maintain a healthy
development, the pups will have to increase their weight by two to three
pounds every week. But that will require a regular supply of nourishment.
These puppies may be small, but to feed them properly, their parents will
need a hunting territory of over a thousand square miles. The male is
kept hard at work. The female still does the begging, but gradually, the
pups will learn this ritual for themselves. The male seems reluctant to
deliver the meal. No doubt he is hungry too, but the female cannot accompany
him and help on long hunts until the pups are a bit older. The pups wolf
down their food, simply because they can never be sure of their next mouthful.
As the days lengthen, so do the leverets' chances of survival. They are
faster now, and smarter. Wolves rarely live beyond nine years in the wild.
The male wolf may already be thirteen. So, although he's exceptional,
he's well past his prime. On days when he is unsuccessful, the female
collects food from her store—leverets that were killed and buried earlier
in the year, when they were easier to catch. But if his family is to survive,
the male cannot give up the hunt. Wolves are the experts
at chasing and collecting moving objects, and this exercise is far more
critical than retrieving a ball. Today is a good day. The male has brought
back two hares and readily gives up one to the female. But her urge to
feed her pups is overwhelming. It's a hard life, but if the male's bloodline
is to survive, then pups' future comes first. In seven seasons, this wolf
couple have raised only three offspring to maturity, and the prospects
for the current family are by no means certain. Already, one pup is quicker
to take advantage of the incoming meal. It's a critical advantage, for
it will give the most vigorous pup a head start when the long arctic winter
begins to close in. The den provides some shelter, but the weather is
not the problem. There may just not be enough food to go around. If the
pups survive until the spring, the parents will have done unusually well.
Wolves have had to be tenacious. Not only do they endure some of the harshest
conditions on earth, but they also have survived bitter hostility from
humanity. Their methods, especially when hunting, may shock us deeply.
But they aren't given meat out of tins and packets, as our dogs are. A
wolf can only be a wolf. They remain wary and unknowable. But steadily,
they are winning back our respect. Even the howl of the wolf, that once
struck terror into our hearts, is now regarded by many as one of the most
thrilling sounds of the natural world. In August these days, hundreds
of Canadians make a pilgrimage into the wilderness to make contact with
wolves. A road, cutting through the remote forests of spruce and fir,
provides a good place to stand and listen for this wild music. These listeners
have no chance of actually seeing a wolf. But National Park rangers know
how to communicate with the legendary outlaw who, for centuries, we have
tried to destroy.

What's in a wolf's howl? A calling card. A warning. An invitation. Hear
the call of the wild at www.pbs.org.

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ANNOUNCER: Next time on NOVA, the bridge of the future takes shape before your
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MAN: Nobody had ever done this before anywhere in the world.

ANNOUNCER: Now, reputations and lives are on the line to cross the Mississippi:
Super Bridge.

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Divers search for the ancient Lighthouse of Alexandria, and discover more than
they bargained for.